YOUNG CONCERN
A clash of interests, aspirations...

By Surubhi Kalra

DOES a certain hairstyle, dress, manner, song with a pun or TV programme that your children love, annoy you? If so, welcome to the generation gap.

We are all products of our formative years and our habits reflect this. A generation gap ensues when we transfer the values of one age to another set of circumstances. For some it’s small; for others it’s a yawning abyss. But gaps can be good for fresh perspectives. Some react so much that they dig them in deep and have a hard time getting out. Others just step across, taking it all in their stride.

But what really causes generation gap?

Perhaps it is the rate of social change that contributes a lot to generation gap. Within a fast changing social order the time interval between generations is merely a moment and it creates a hiatus between one generation and the next. Inevitably, under such a condition youth is reared in a milieu different from that of parents. Therefore, the parents become old-fashioned. Rapid social change adds an extrinsic variable to the intrinsic differences between parents and children. As a result, youth rebels and clashes occur within the closely confined circle of the family, generating tension.

Generally, age views events in the light of experience and is not ready to adapt to the new ideas very easily. The youth look forward with a sense of adventure; they do not want the fetters of history. If age requires reason to resolve, youth wantonly a pretext to go ahead unrestrained.

Says Karan, at 19, "I am part of what has been labelled the Lost Generation. I live happily at home, study and dance at college. I am not lost. Like many of my peers, I wonder about the future. But for now, I would rather concentrate on the present. I have seen the Lost Generation drunk, stoned, depressed and disillusioned, but which generation has not been? I have also seen the Lost Generation having fun being happy, responsible, successful and dedicated. We can and do enjoy our youth. "But age usually lack faith and condemn and criticise this view of the youngsters.

Says Karuna, a final year post-graduate student, "We may sometimes lack knowledge but we are certainly not devoid of intelligence. We can see through shams with sharp eyes. Age often objects too much, consults too long, and adventures too little. The vices of age have the stiffness of it too. We must not forget that years do not make sages; they make only old men. Age is often a tyrant, which forbids the pleasures of youth."

This is what a liberal professor of Panjab University says, "We have lost the ability to live on the edge of difference. The imaginative sympathy, the openness and flexibility of mind, cool calmness of judgement is no longer a part of our collective normal behaviour. To be able to do one’s duty even when one is not watched and to be able to keep at the job until it is finished is no longer our national character." We are indeed impatient to take another’s point of view. The following anecdote offers the savor of generation gap:

Teacher: "When I was of your age I could answer any question in mathematics."

Student: Yes, Sir, but you had a different teacher."

Indeed, if the ideal teacher has vanished, so has the student.

Another factor that adds to generation gap is the birth cycle, decelerating socialisation and parent-child differences. Since the parent and child are in different stages of development, the bearing that the parents then acquired were different from that which the child is now acquiring. The parent is supposed to socialise the child and, in order to do so, he tends to apply the erstwhile standards, which, for the prevailing time, become unbefitting and inappropriate. This mistake which the parents commonly make is irremediable. Therefore to the growth of children’s personality, their basic orientation is formed by experiences of their own childhood. As a result, they cannot renew and refurbish their point of view because they are products of their own felt experiences.

The precise physiological differences between parents and the offspring vary radically from one period to another. When the child reaches adolescence, he is at a position when he is acquiring power and the older generation is at a point where it is relinquishing power.

Age realism versus youth idealism leads to conflict amongst both. Though both the youth and the age claim to see the truth, the old are more conservatively realistic than the young are. The youth takes utopian ideals rather seriously. The age conveniently forgets the poetic ideals of a new social order that they themselves had cherished when young. In their place, they simply put the working ideals. There is persistent tendency to gravitate more and more towards the status quo. The young have ideals, which soar to the sky. This boundless idealism of youth becomes complicated when they find it incompatible with the "working" ideals of age. Therefore, as a solution, the youth takes decision on his own which does not conform to the prevailing yardsticks. The generation gap arises.

When the child grows into an adolescent his personality expands. His future is before him. For the parents it’s behind them. For them, the future is in the sense that the offspring represents. This results in a disparity of interest. The young places his thoughts upon a future which does not include the parents, whereas the parents place their hopes upon the young. The old and the young possess conflicting norms. Therefore social change gives them a different social content. There is a loss of mutual identification. Apart from this, even within the generation there is confusion. And because of the conflicting goals, parents become inconsistent and confused in their own minds about socialising their children.

In modern societies, education of youth is largely in hands of specialised agencies that give the younger generation advanced ideas. This advancement in training also widens the intellectual gap between the parent and the child.

Another factor that adds to the conflicting situation is the paradoxical combination of concentration and dispersion within the family. Being small, the family unit gives rise to "one feeling" and since all the pursuits take place outside the family and home, it gives rise to dispersion of activities.

In the present day achievement-oriented societies, the emphasis is on individual initiative and vertical mobility results in the adolescent taking a decision on his future occupation. He has to choose from a panorama of occupations, which are full of uncertainties and competition. The youth being idealistic is unaware of facts and since the parents too are not very clear about these, they try to evaluate future possibilities differently, resulting in clash of interests. Further more when parents try to fulfil their own dreams and ambitions by forcing the child to follow their goals and roles conflict between the two further increases.

The youth of every era has regarded the old as out-of-date, old-fashioned, conservative and lacking in initiative. On the contrary, the older generation has felt the young as wanting in understanding and respect.

The very objectives, aspirations and pursuits of the older and younger generation are sometimes diametrically opposed to each other. It is the end that has taken precedence over the means. The material pursuits and comforts, earned or unearned, are fervidly and fiercely sought. Even music with throbbing rhythm is a craze with the younger generation. They don’t have patience with sublime music or melody. Jabber , babble, slang and colloquialism is in vogue because the young are in a hurry and don’t have the patience to ‘waste’ time on the finer nuances of the language. The mood and temper of the generation is manifestly different.

In the ultimate analysis we can deduce that prejudices and stereotypes hinder our personal development and separate us from others. We need to look earnestly and honestly at ourselves and try to discard these faults. Then and only then we can communicate effectively regardless of age and background.